1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since a liquid crystal panel has a pair of substrates, in order to maintain a gap (a space for sealing liquid crystal) between them, spacers are provided on one of the substrates (JP2007-122061A and international publication WO2005/038518). Alignment films are formed on the surfaces of respective substrates opposed to each other, and thus the alignment film on the spacers and the alignment film on the substrate may come in contact with each other. If the alignment films are exfoliated due to the contact, the exfoliated chips of the alignment films float in the liquid crystal, and thus light emitted from the backlight is reflected by them, and the chips become microscopic bright spots.
When a heat shock test (−35 to 85° C.; 90 to 360 cycles) was performed on a large-size liquid crystal panel, it was detected that microscopic bright spots occurred. In the large-size liquid crystal panel, due to the panel size, the amounts of bending of the substrate at high temperature and low temperature are large. Hence, the amount of lateral deviation between one substrate (thin film transistor substrate) and the other substrate (color filter substrate) is large. As the mechanism of occurrence of the microscopic bright spots, it can be inferred that the alignment films may be scraped against each other due to abrasion caused by the lateral deviation. Further, there is also a problem in that the alignment film appropriate for an increase in contrast tends to be scraped.